The Soulmate Curse

PATCHOULI (for grounding) - Part 2

A few months went by after the hospital incident. Finn had been through the wringer. Having been decommissioned almost a decade ago, the prison she was transferred to had reopened the AI controlled Solitary Housing Unit upon her arrival. They said it was for her safety. Many prison guards had invested in MechSoft. Many more had secretly been on the company's payroll receiving bribes and kickbacks. Inmates too. It was an open secret. A corruption too intricately weaved into the fabric of the prison system to extricate itself from. Almost a necessary evil. And they were now all gunning for Finn and Zhen.

For a person who'd constantly been surrounded by her friends, family and coven, the solitary confinement wreaked irreparable havoc. Finn was lying on the cot against the wall of the six-foot by ten-foot room, staring at, but not really seeing, the fluorescent bulb above her. It was humming. Her only companion in this hellhole. She had been skirting the edge of a breakdown when the doors opened and a person, not a robot, walked in for the first time in months. She was almost certain she'd already gone past the edge and was hallucinating. But no. It was a person. And they were speaking to her.

"Hello Miss Darrow," she said.

Finn hadn't said a word in weeks. Her throat felt like it had forgotten the function. She just stared at the woman.

"The assault charges against you have been dropped, your case has been dismissed. You're free to go," she said. "I'm here to escort you out."

Oh, so she really was hallucinating. Bummer. It would have been nice to speak to someone. Finn went back to staring at the bulb on the ceiling of her cell.

"Did you hear me, Miss Darrow?"

Finn turned to the door once more. The woman was still there. Was this not a figment of her imagination? Because that woman had just said that she was free to go. And that just wasn't possible. Not after what she'd done. That doctor had lost all function of his knee. He'd been pretty adamant about wanting Finn to rot in the depths of hell. Which she was.

"You're free to go."

She'd said it again.

Finn decided to give this apparition the benefit of the doubt. Only until she could confirm its apparition-ness. She swung her feet to the side of the thin mattress. Then she stood up. The apparition was still there. Finn walked towards it. And reached out a hand to touch it. She balled her fist halfway through, preparing herself for the inevitable blow that would ensue once her hand went right through the spectre. Instead, however, the spirit creature balled its own fist and bumped Finn's. The shock to her system almost sent Finn tumbling headfirst into the abyss of madness. Almost. Not knowing how, she kept her cool.

"Follow me," the woman said. "And, for the record, I want to thank you for your contribution to humankind, especially in the face of all the sacrifices you had to make."

That last speech was lost to Finn. She still couldn't believe she was walking outside her prison cell. She followed the lady all the way through the process of release, still waiting to wake up on her cot and find that this was just a madman's nightmare all the while.

However, she found herself walking into the sunlight, squinting at the brightness. The cheeriness. Then she was suddenly engulfed in a hug. The scent was unmistakable. It was Zhen.

"Finally!" said Zhen. She laughed. "I was about ready to go in there and get you myself."

"Zhen?" she whispered, afraid to hope that this was true.

Zhen nodded and then kissed her. It was a kiss filled with passion and fire. A fire that burnt away all the fog that blocked Finn's thoughts. A kiss that woke every inch of her up. And even if this was just a dream, Finn didn't care anymore. She gave in, kissed Zhen back with the same intensity and let herself drown in the relief and hope and joy that came with giving in.

*

"Turn on the TV!" Zhen called out from the kitchen of her studio apartment at the Amputee Astronaut Base. "He's officially addressing the world today."

It was a few days after Finn had been released from prison. A few days after she'd learnt that her and Zhen's actions, born from a game of roommate silent treatment in what seemed like a lifetime ago, had forever changed the world. She'd spent the last few days with her family and fielding questions from the media, but she needed to get away from all that. It was all too intense after her months-long confinement.

So, Zhen had brought her here. To her tiny apartment. It was nice. Nothing like the tiny cell she'd become used to, but small enough that it didn't cause her too much anxiety. Plus, Zhen was here with her. In person. Not just a figure in her dreamscape. And that was something she wouldn't trade for anything.

The same news was playing on all stations.

"...As we continue to watch the scenes from almost a year ago in a hospital that was held hostage by a paramilitary group from the Outskirts, there has been an outpouring of both positive and negative support for the two young ladies responsible for it and who are now officially being blamed for the fall of the Corporate Giant, MechSoft and all that followed after. Having said that, just a few minutes ago, the girls finally received the biggest endorsement from a person who had been egregiously affected by the mega corporation's unethical behaviour," said the TV reporter.

A video of the engineer who'd been wrongly accused to be a serial killer came on, shocking Finn enough to fully sit up to watch the video. She'd only heard the rumours and seen the videos circulating around the internet from all around the world, but he had stayed away from it all. Until now.

He began speaking.

"I have felt the sting of going against MechSoft," he said. "There are worse things than death, and MechSoft were expert in them all. While most of you know about the alien lifeform whose discovery MechSoft worked to hide from humanity, that was only a part of why they decided to bury me in the deepest hole that they could, stripping away any type of dignity, respect and support I could have had."

Finn felt her breath catch. She could feel it in her gut. That feeling that everything was about to change.

"The reason MechSoft wanted me silenced, but alive and with no hope, was because of the first successful genetic modification done on the alien bacterial lifeform found on that asteroid," explained the engineer. "Under my direction, we created a new bacterium that could transform base metals into one of the strongest materials ever known to man. Strong enough to contain the reaction from nuclear fusion."

He paused there and it was for good reason. If Finn hadn't already been sitting down, she'd be floored. The unsubstantiated videos and rumors were one thing, but to have it confirmed like this was quite another. The world likely made a collective gasp.

"He said it, didn't he? He just confirmed that we can contain nuclear fusion," Finn said, almost inaudibly.

"He did," Zhen said, absentmindedly handing Finn a bowl of popcorn.

"That means..."

"Unlimited energy source."

"That's bigger than the fall of MechSoft."

"It is. It means the fall of money."

"Oh, shit."

"Yeah."

The TV reporter came back. "This announcement has caused a wide array of reactions globally. In most places, religious groups have called emergency meetings for mass prayer. In other areas, millions have poured into the streets in both celebration and protest. We will have to wait and see what the final global reaction will be."

"You saved him, Finn," said Zhen. "And I'm doing so, you changed the world. Again."

"We changed the world," Finn replied. She couldn't have done this alone. "Or did we just break it?"

She looked at Zhen and saw the concern on Zhen's face. Finn knew why that look was there. She hadn't been quite the same after those few months at the SHU. Somehow, nothing seemed as bright anymore. As good.